Friday, 28 October 2011

Old Dissertations

After my last tutorial, I have looked at some old dissertations and they have been more helpful than I thought they would be. From the three that I looked at I can see how academically they have to be writtent o achieve a decent grade and also how much research others have done to underrstand what they are writing about. From looking at some bibloiographies on similar topics to my dissertation I have more titles which I can look into.


Sunday, 23 October 2011

Typeradio

Loads of podcasts on typography, some relevant to my dissertation. I need to ho through these and make notes and quotes which I can then use in my dissertation and as research. So happy I found this fantastic resource!

IMAGE

Friday, 21 October 2011

Tutorial 2

Progress was slow between my last tutorial and this one as it was only one week and I had focussed on my design practice. I have a direction to go forward with and it has been suggested by Amber that I look at some old dissertations from a few graduates from last year.

IMAGE

Monday, 17 October 2011

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Thursday, 8 September 2011

Dissertation. Started.

I am taking my dissertation very seriously and my aim for the summer was to make a good dent in my research. I think I may have found out too much about too many things, but I am hoping that in a tutorial I can narrow down my search and adjust my title accordingly.


Monday, 8 August 2011

Dissertation proposal

Dissertation proposal - approved!

Some great feedback into the direction that interests me.




Monday, 23 May 2011

New technology & Typography



Possible themes...

I think I want to look into typography and the relationship between handrawn and digital, as trends to use hand-rendered type has increased in recent years.

A chat with Fred and Richard has helped me to settle this down further to look into the rise of handrawn typography and in this I could look at the history of handrawn and why we may be reverting back to this.

Monday, 9 May 2011

Thursday, 5 May 2011

Sunday, 1 May 2011

Saturday, 26 March 2011

Task 7

Analyse a work of Graphic Design using quotes from others. (Focusing on comic sans)

http://www.comicsanscriminal.com/






This comic sans criminal

Friday, 25 March 2011

Task 6

As a designer have you ever used a stereotype to initiate communication? For instance an idea of youth as opposed to age or what it is to be female as opposed to male? Have you tried to communicate to an audience based on class stereotypes? Have you seen other designers doing this?

Sterotypes are reinforced by design because they work. The asthetics of something makes us associate a response, this is the semiotics of a piece. With stereotypes, a range of semiotic symbols have been gathered to form one.

This is stunting the growth of our understanding of others, most prominently in relation to other cultures. As we see the same images used to portray a culture, such as Chinese, we take it on board and it reinforces our stereotype, as nothing is being done to confront it.

Chinese restaurant in China
Chinese restaurant in England
Yes, this is real. With 664 members and 10,645 photos...



























































From the two comparative pictures. I cannot see where this design stereotype has evolved form. As designers and throughout advertising especially, stereotypes are used because they work. They easily denote a thought and association. We can communicate really easily with the use of these, to a large audience, but we are communicating the wrong this on a large scale. This way of communicating is using redundant techniques such as high predicatability to communicate to a large audience.

Previously, I have used stereotypes in my design to communicate Vogue. I aimed it specifically at women and so used pink, a symbol of a woman and hand-drawn, girly writing. Looking back I am very dissapointed in this piece and is one of my worst bit of work.

Vogue

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Globalisation, sustainability and the media lecture



















Globalisation
In an extremely basic interpretation of globalisation is the spread of ideas according to the stansford university encyclopedia of philosophy.

George Ritzer
coined the term 'McDonaldisation' to communicate the way in which the fast-food business approach is being applied to more sectors of society.





















Marshall McLuhan
foretold the internet, much as George Orwell foretold the CCTV society of today. What else is possible?




















Global village 
'If the global village is run with certain set of values then it would not so much be an integrated one as an assimulated one'. A handful order the rest of the world what to look at and what should be viewed b the rest. Big names are Rupert Merdoch and Time Warner.






















Greenwashing
Basically slap some green on an advertisment and it will instantly look environmentally friendly. Sure...

Jean Baudrillard and Hyperreality Seminar

Task 5

Read the text- Balser, E (2008) 'Capital Accumulation, Sustainability & Hamilton Ontario'. We have copies in the CTS office, 115.

Write a 500 word critical summary of the text which explicitly adresses the following questions

How is sustainability defined in the text?
What are the main characteristics or tendencies of Capitalism
Define a 'crisis of Capitalism'. Offer an example.
What solutions have been offered to the sustainability question? Are these successful or realistic? - If not why are they flawed?
Is the concept of sustainability compatible with Capitalism?

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

Task 4

"Who says what in what channel to whom with what effect?" is the principle of communication theory in regards to Shannon and Weaver model. I thought a good example would be one which works and I could explain and learn for myself why I remember it and how I could possibly use these elements in future. The one which stood out to me is a collection of graffiti recently appearing in Leeds. With street art, you can tell a definite style to someones work and see a collection of it, even if they have not been identified as a collective. We know there is someone trying to communicate with us, but we never see the person, only their message.

Street art 01

Street art 01 and minimum noise

Street art 02

Street art 02 and minimum noise



















































































Rival street art























These have been plastered to the streets in busy areas, but not at eye level. There is limited noise around the graffiti which is uncommon. Once one person tags a wall, another and another and another do the same it seems. To reduce the impact of noise even more, the medium on which this is made is unusual for the purpose. Newspaper. The artist is not damaging street property, but is making his art more high-end through appearing in the same format as a poster. Colour reduces noise even further, against the dark background, the pink and brightness of the medium shine out and grab our eyes attention. We recieve a message even at a glance. Entropy is essential in these designs, unpredictability make them stand out among all the stereotypical takeaways and pubs. A high level os information is built into these (a picture tells a thousand words) but at a glance, we only recieve a small amount of this. Due to this it is important that the impact is high and continued.

The areas in which I have seen these designs have been on streets heavily used by students. Near Woodhouse (Raglan Road) and along Woodhouse Lane. The more you see of these works, the more impacted they become on our memories, and so this is aimed at students, as these are the primary walkers of these streets and see both works.

Noise can be created by other artists, and even though another piece of work is not near these, I find myself thinking about them both the equal amount, possibly to me I put them in the same category as being different and interesteing that they merge as one collection in my mind. This is damaging to the reputation as one, as it is not seen as simply 'one' anymore. These other works I have seem have a more digital and finished look to them, and communicate with a less obscure voice. The message is still difficult to decode as through illustration there are thousands of semiotical and semantic theories we apply without even realising. The most damaging noise has come from my mind, and how I have stored this information. There are level B communication problems with all of these artworks as the illustrations are obscure and don't have context with the surroundings. They are not relatable to anything we know and therefore the message could be recieved warped. In semantics, language is not an issue, but the tone of voice of the illustration mixed with the colours are conflicting. Memorably conflicting through the use of entropy and channel.

Friday, 11 February 2011

Essay plan and formative feedback

SCANS OF ESSAY AND NOTES